copula

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

In one episode the shirtless tribal leader Khal Drogo delivered a monologue for two and a half minutes in Dothraki, with its subject-verb-object structure and no copula, or linking verb.

From New York Times • Dec. 11, 2011

By means of this representation, and the peculiar nature of the attribute, the verb is distinguished from the mere logical copula, with which it is liable to be confounded if these ideas are not understood.

From The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt With the Translation of an Unpublished Memoir by Him on the American Verb by Brinton, Daniel Garrison

He thinks his fate alien, because the copula is hidden.

From The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature Representative Prose and Verse by Various

It is apt to be supposed that the copula is something more than a mere sign of predication; that it also signifies existence.

From A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive by Mill, John Stuart

But since the former can be conceived only after the manner of the latter, the appropriateness of using the verb which expresses existence or reality, as the logical copula, will be at once apparent.

From Ontology or the Theory of Being by Coffey, Peter